This month, the National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA) in Beijing will host BYU’s Contemporary Dance Theatre (CDT) in a performance of their latest show, “Encounters.” The performance is part of the larger “Chun Hua Oiu Shi” festival, a week of selected performances from arts universities in China. Stephen Jones, Dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communications, expressed his appreciation for the opportunity of BYU students and faculty to take part in the event November 13.
“Our Department of Dance is honored to be invited to participate with you in this prestigious festival, honoring the growth, the strength, and the superb skills of our students,” Jones said. The invitation to perform at this festival emerges from the relationships that BYU has been building with the Chinese audiences and arts administrators for more than thirty years. “Despite our differences in language and the differences that separate us in geography, the value of the arts, including those human expressions of love, goodness, truth, beauty and excellence that unite us,” Jones said. For Jones, the invitation is a natural outgrowth of not just of the mutual admiration between BYU and its Chinese counterparts but also from the hard work and creativity espoused by BYU’s dance program.
“These students and their faculty strive for excellence and regularly receive national and international recognition for the quality of their performance,” Jones said. The NCPA has been host to hundreds of outstanding dancers, musicians and actors since its inaugural concert in 2007. BYU’s contemporary dance team joins this long list of world-class talent with their performance. “The meaning of the title of our concert, Encounters, include the ideas, images and possibilities of all the ways that we might connect, and the notion that every encounter might change us,” said Marylin Berrett, chair of the Department of Dance. The CDT will dance to the music of composers George Gershwin, Ishan Rustem, and others as they portray captivating encounters with people, places and ideas. After exploring all of these encounters, the show will reach its fitting culmination in a collaboration between BYU and the Beijing Dance Academy. “We are so thrilled that the students from the Beijing Dance Academy are joining with the students from Brigham Young University in an East meets West encounter. This is a most remarkable opportunity for us,” Berrett said. Visit dance.byu.edu for more information on BYU’s dance programs.